I flew to KyotoI put oil together with pepper (a crime)Don’t do it dear, the wedding / I insist you make woodcuts I’ve not seen yr photo, yet I’m happy it’s there,so Conte & Calvino will be on the oceanwith the boy who is busy, with a person whohas always had the worst moments /in case it’s necessary, don’t exploit the friendshipon these wonderful pages, pleasedon’t believe there is no problemonly I cut the wood myself.God’s wish and crying is easy before using colors,spread the gloves with soap, not under the nailslike blue or yellow raw pigment mixed with Tokio and Kyoto and my anguish to the point of realizing I abandoned my children for texture and brooding.Over the last decade,my cerebral theme has been travel.I spend my time performing biological preferences

Milky Way arching across
panorama of Southern Sky above the Paranal platform of European Southern
Observatory's Very Large Telescope (moon rising, zodiacal light shining
above it, Milky Way stretching across sky; visible to right and below
the arc, Small and Large Magellanic Clouds): photo by ESO/H.H. Heyer,
2001; image by Maedin, 2010

2.

Because it creases so easilythey tore it down.Jim only had a short while to achieve disorder amongst the paper. A smaller format to push this time.What’s the size of yourself what’s thetrap in the question what’sthe point of saying you can do itif the hand can wipe us out so easilyand still accommodate the flood?Philosophically, I grin / so had I!Looking mystically skyward he regrets the possiblehe tends to stay put because the aquatint gets dusted thru yr pants as the rosin take to cotton like a flame.The depths of the odd thing makes the toy typicalof my blooming drunk rose.I deserve respect on the grounds, that at a bare minimum, the veteranwho repeatedly turned a trickis searching for a larger radiance.My awesome power lies beneath the cuteness of geometrythe skeleton of timereveals just how metaphysical a crossroad can be,instead of foil.There is an abstract career

360
degree panorama of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley at night. The Milky
Way is visible as the arc in the center. A sailing stone is also seen
below along with the tracks of other stones: photo by Dan Duriscoe for U.S. National Park Service, 2005

3.

The walker resurfaces to gainthe hammer of return.Your awesome ghostlinessand your strength thru radioactivity makes the concrete title help our intentions and moods.The beautiful exchange of warfare and the rueful grimace, made the order achieve itself before John called a halt to villains.Tear up the screamsI continue to beat with my thumbs /my fear of what happens when art becomes a loose gulp. I’m doing what I think I love.A worker’s dilemmaA virtuoso performance for landscape.I said it’s not possible. You can blowthem up as balloons, a true storybut I get vegetables and fruit and I drag them outlike condomsfor friends

Panorama of a thunderstorm shelf cloud over the city of Wagga Wagga: photo by Bidgee, 2007

4.

Caught at the crossroad of psychologyRobert Creeley and JimDine regret the long time running /we wish for connections atthe point of cipher,near zero, ok?“WOOF WOOF”The increasing nuclear war between our toes, the petals of rain on the hard crust of day old memorieshere comes the pathosthe tears that make us stay with pure black.Golem, the guest percussionist tonite.Resurfaces in the ghost of Franz Kline.Myself, I’m a firm member of American colonial power,a long traditionThat will kill -- we already know this.Confront our gossamer powerwith identity as the main theme.The Republic has removed mefrom the photographI was the model in the windowall these years at the gate.When did I, I ask in a drunken haze, begin old age instruction

Mount Carleton panorama: photo by andrew pmk, 2005

5.

All, in generally good conditionwe are busy these days.And at night we apologize andsay, please come to Paris againplease don’t be unfortunateplease get in touch soon likelast nite Demetrio called SaraRecordati, have a Sambucco,oil and pepper again, blackhair on yr upper lipagain.For 2 years I’m in the bronze foundries casting and chasingall the incidental paint strokesaccumulated like a pot on a stoveA long long time ago. I loved it /A model of people and what’s in them thematically.My Republic’s bodyleaving behind a core of ironiesliving in our youth --A time of status quo / and fear of what you do to increase productivity. You inspire me to go against him.

Great White Lake, Mongolia: photo by Doron, 2000

6.

Typical of me and my impatiencegrowing more complexto assert a less corporate view of the monkey in our sightsjust above the taboo of ghetto feminism & pure saltwater swimming, in a vehicle of lyricism,other times in a state of flightand the full significance of a free man posing as a gentilefor the safety of sticks and nuances of dark hearts & rope /this physical dominance,this new work fixated.And mown like branches on the groundrebellious like the sun, the ethos of a smile.Colleges come forth and join the detachment of words from ligamentsmake homely shadows / introduce tools to each otherthe clamp has always demandeda primitive chordto be sexual about.Get personal and frolicmake drawings of muscle and salt.

Walloon Lake, northern Michigan, winter: photo by Moxfyre, 2008

7.

Wiser and with a farwider variety of response“A Famous Fall” every other year to cross this barrier of modern truth and cosmic age,hard to get overto the other side of however you are nowwhile reading or hearing this and atrue self to be tried and touched with apologies. (fragile swords)A boy under pressure and --us boy! Under the loserwith money to pay for thephone call to Paris to treasurethe blunt / and coax a twisting line of faces demeaning the effect of this war.Overwhelmed by denselycompressed costumes attheir most fundamentalthe society is but a corruptPilate and I yawn alongwith late friends who exemplify,the fastidious

but as an aphrodisiac. My sagging neck calls to be airbrushed.I may have the same passportbut I’m not entering the misunderstoodbrotherhood of dreamers

The Rhône Glacier in Oberwald (Switzerland): photo by Ikiwaner, 28 July 2007

9.

Once brightly paintedI am a southern Italian singer and prophetlisting to the left of my companions /lured by sailors dressed as singing beautiesseat the string playerdespair at his open mouth along withthe beautiful hands ofthe sirens.My eastern way of dressingseems to protecta sense of the dead.A mortal manand murdererstanding on each of our outstretched armsemoting the loss of childhood and trying tobecome the promiseof life as a group of heroes.Enraptured and drawn,the voices of the womengasp and murmur sacred mysteries about each other. We thought of you and --“A child in winter sings” “A child in winter sings”

Panoramic image of the Morteratsch glacier in the Bernina Range: photo by Daniel Schwen, 21 March 2006

10.

The Republic,your newest work.EveningA fingerprint of stars rushing down theMaximilianstrasse in negative,handpainted as a cathartic rootto celebrate the blood in the third movement.To translate is to compose atonally so -- I reach for my horn andmake concentric sounds,visual clues used as a glaze to keep it solid and water tight. Do you agree to send some poems to aperson who has always beenlost?A few good oxen, what a great idea!I don’t believe we can wed before the weekendI won’t be home till sunday.I’m happy about the poems,Let’s call them “KIDS AT SEA”Is that clear?....Does my exuberance give way to a style of itinerant living? Ah well.......It’s the end of the evening and we’ve not explored the minerals yet.

The magnificent sweep of things . . . and that includes Jim Dine’s panoramic. ‘A fingerprint of stars rushing down the Maximilianstrasse in negative . . .’ Yeah! Over this way, after yesterday’s bowl of clear blue sky, spangled with cloud swirls, we find ourselves on the first official day of hurricane season. Weather sweeping in.

Robert Creeley related that the early memory of his father's having been a doctor who went out on house calls with his kit, everything he needed right there with him, was important to his own later sense of the tools of one's trade -- the idea that one could carry what one needed, light and portable.

That personal kit one has, trusting it -- that one can see with Jim, also. He brings the words he has, and uses them.

(He travels a lot, and travels light -- when we talked about this last year, he said, I don't have a home, where I am is home, as long as I have my working materials with me.)

Speaking of home,NASA reports today that our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy are on course for a head-on collision . . . in only four billion years. The smash up will take another two billion but we'll come out okay, so they say. Just in case, I'm not planning anything for that weekend. You?

Not to disrespect others, but the penetrating, unflinching self-observation and honesty of Jim's poem -- comprising at the same time an earned clarity about what he calls "the Republic" -- make it stand out from other work by survivors of our generation. This is a writer who is not standing behind a projection of reputation, and expecting respect to follow automatically therefrom. To stay relevant an artist must stay relevant. At no time is that an easy task for anyone. JD manages it because the bs of celebrity is alien to his nature as a working artist. He is a working artist, not a celebrity in retirement. In this there is a dignity. For this he is owed respect -- as is the work, which stands on its own merits.

For me it's "old age instruction" of the most valuable kind.

___

I deserve respect on the grounds, that at a bare minimum, theveteranwho repeatedly turned a trickis searching for a larger radiance.My awesome power lies beneath the cuteness of geometrythe skeleton of timereveals just how metaphysical a crossroad can be,instead of foil.There is an abstract career

__

Myself, I’m a firm member of American colonial power,a long traditionThat will kill -- we already know this.Confront our gossamer powerwith identity as the main theme.The Republic has removed mefrom the photographI was the model in the windowall these years at the gate.When did I, I ask in a drunken haze, begin old age instruction

I've said Jim is a great traveller, but I have neglected to say that at this time of year he is busy working the earth. He and his wife the artist Diana Michener are "tilling the fields," as he wrote yesterday.

And another pertinent fact I have neglected to mention: the poem posted here was begun as part of a multi-media project a few years ago. Photos of the project in its construction phase can be found in a book from Jim's publisher, Steidl. Here's their announcement:

"American Pop pioneer Jim Dine was asked by Los Angeles' Getty Museum in 2007 to produce the first contemporary project for the Getty Villa in Malibu by responding in some way to its renowned antiquities collection. Dine was drawn to the collection's ancient Greek sculptures and was given a room in the Villa for which he created three new monumental wood sculptures that he painted brightly in the Hellenistic tradition. Dine also wrote a long poem, which he installed alongside the sculptures, on the gallery wall. Jim Dine: Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets) documents the entire process with photographs by Dine, Diana Michener and Gerhard Steidl."

In this extraordinary video one can see Jim at work on the sculptures and poem that comprise the project -- the poem "with its Orphic themes of travel, loss and the possibility of art", taking shape on the walls behind the sculpted figures.

"There's nothing so comfortable to me as making marks with the hand... The hand has, to me, a kind of memory."

Living with this -- Dine's poem, the images, and the comments -- has been very moving, something I've taken around with me since you posted it. I knew nothing about Jim Dine's poetry before seeing examples posted here and this example continues the relevancy you describe, the live-wire nature of the work. Your description/tribute to Dine is very moving and accurate. I've been aware of and interested in Dine's visual art for a very long time. One of its very positive aspects, apart from its beauty and the artist's facility, is its depth. It always seems at least one step ahead of me and it keeps me in pursuit, which is great. Curtis

Thanks very much, and I'm right there with you re. "the live-wire nature of the work", the surprising sudden depths, and that "one step ahead" quality". I too am kept in pursuit (if not left in the dust!).

And further from the poet John Tranter in Sydney. This is all not only highly curious but eerily coincidental -- Walla Walla / Wagga Wagga.

"Of course everyone should know: Wagga Wagga is the hometown of history's most contentious litigant, the so-called Tichborne Claimant:

"[Wikipedia » ] The Tichborne case was a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by an individual sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy. He failed to convince the courts, was convicted of perjury and served a long prison sentence.

"In October 1865 Cubitt informed Lady Tichborne that William Gibbes, a lawyer from Wagga Wagga, had identified Roger Tichborne in the person of a bankrupt local butcher using the name of Thomas Castro.[21] During his bankruptcy examination Castro had mentioned an entitlement to property in England. He had also talked of experiencing a shipwreck, and was smoking a briar pipe which carried the initials "R.C.T.". When challenged by Gibbes to reveal his true name, Castro had initially been reticent, but eventually agreed that he was indeed the missing Roger Tichborne; henceforth he became generally known as the Claimant.[19][21]"

Thrilling to think of Johnny watching the video of Jimmy doing his thing. This must be the tradition -- and to paraphrase Dr Faustus, we are not yet out of the woods of it, Insh'Allah.

The video, in case some have not seen it, is telling in several respects.

First, the salient role of physicality in the work. The making by hand. The beautiful shots of Jim drawing -- a great skill, to which many are called, few chosen. The lovely immediate free flowing of the line.

And this relating to the total/gestural quality of the work in its wholeness, image and shape and words not finally distinct, all for one, all for all; yet made by one.

And finally, the point in the proceedings where Jim says, Take off the paint -- it's too smooth, we want to see the roughness of the finish.

Crucial moment. Where the original conception opens up, as in the parting of veils, and the brilliance of the imbedded diamond begins to glint forth.

__

Also thinking further about Curtis's comment on depth.

The work at this end was to bring width, expansion, so that the impact of the depth charges would ripple out and around the hull of the (craftman)ship, as well as in.

The graphic matching plan with the images here is probably obvious enough -- the gently humped cloud and sky images gradually flattening out as we scroll down -- again taking the signals from the work itself, which spoke, which speaks, which will go on speaking.